13 Charged After Raids On Grow Houses

June 12, 2009|By Eliot Kleinberg The Palm Beach Post

Authorities have charged at least 13 people with operating marijuana grow houses in the Loxahatchee area after raiding five homes within hours Wednesday and finding grow rooms and dozens of plants and clippings weighing more than 200 pounds.

Federal authorities would not comment on the raids. But the U.S. Attorney's Office and the South Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force have scheduled a news conference for Friday afternoon in Miami to "discuss the statewide results of Operation Eagle Claw, a statewide law enforcement effort to curb the spread of hydroponic marijuana grow houses throughout the state," according to a release.

According to a Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office report, on Wednesday morning, members of the agency's SWAT and narcotics units went to a home in the 16000 block of Prestwich Lane, where they smelled pot from the driveway.

They seized 20, 7-gallon pots with harvest-ready marijuana plants and another seven in which plants had been cut at the root. The report does not say how much the plants weighed.

Around the same time, agents raided a home in the 15000 block of 81st Terrace in suburban Palm Beach Gardens, where they arrested Lissette Quintana, 37, and Andre Dieguez, 39. They seized plants weighing 60 pounds.

Agents also went to a home in the 15000 block of 99th St. in Loxahatchee, where they detained Alberto Miranda, 28, of southern Miami-Dade County, David Bayona, 29, of Loxahatchee, and Milton De Los Rios Jr., 26, of Miami.

All three said Rios and Miranda had come up from Miami-Dade County and the three had spent the last two days breaking down the grow house.

Later that morning, agents raided a home where they arrested Rene Perez Batista, 43, of Greenacres, and found 11 plants weighing about 14 1/2 pounds.

Around the same time, deputies went to a home in the 4000 block of Sunny Lane in suburban West Palm Beach and detained residents Francisco Alvarez Valez Jr., 21, Angelo-Pena Mendez, 23, and Laura A. Casado, 26.